Just Thinking

I listened to The Stranger as I was driving across the country. Have you ever thought that nobody could come up with the same number of random thoughts as you do?  My drive was filled with random thoughts. It seems to me that Meursault had a very random mind (thank you, Wikipedia, for that spelling.) My brain seems to wander over a million thoughts - "When you drive on highway 40 from the East to the West, the mile signs count down how far you have to drive to leave a state. When you drive in the other direction, it's like getting old. You see the numbers add up, but you don't know when it will be over. Is that like Benjamin Button's experience? Should I see that movie? Hummm." "Oh, there's a sign that shows the way to a tornado shelter. Is it tornado season? How do those clouds look? What is a sign of trouble? Oh oh, what is that cloud doing over there?" (Note: Oklahoma City was struck by an unseasonable tornado two days after I spent the night by there.)

And on it goes. Besides enjoying Meursault's thoughts, I liked how the book was written.  It is very brief. I don't know why I wasn't required to read it in high school or college. I would have hated writing an essay about it, but would have loved discussing it. His mother dies and people are perplexed by his attitude toward that. I would not have had enough life experience when I was in school to understand how he could have seemed so unfeeling. Then he shoots a guy because of too many things, but he blames the unbearable heat and light. Again, I would have had too little life experience to understand that. I guess this means that we should reread all those horrible books we were assigned way back when. They might actually be very thought-provoking.

My friend, Per, recommended The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Because of his recommendation, I ordered the book - twice. Adrian brought one of the books with him at Thanksgiving. It was ripped off by a visitor to the house. Fortunately, Adrian had not lent out the other copy. This is a fascinating book. Thanks, Per. It's a mystery. There is much violence and, for once, I was glad that I was reading a paper copy, not listening. It was very easy to skip the violent stuff. And it was well written. The author died mysteriously of a massive heart attack at 50. Maybe it wasn't mysterious, but he was a lot like the main character in this book. It seems like a lot of people might want to kill him. Or sleep with him.

There will be more books (2) by this author once they are translated from Swedish to English. Get on with it, fellows. I want to read them all. My sister was less thrilled. Be aware, there is violence against women. If that's a deal-killer (in books, I know it is in life) don't read this.
The party who ripped off my Dragon Girl recommended the Outlander book and series. The book is very long, so after listening to a quarter of it, I listened to the end. Not impressed. Oh sure, it does have in intriguing time travel element, which is telegraphed for several chapters. It also has extreme violence and perversion. Our blue-eyed hero of the 1700's is constantly having unthinkable things done to him. And wait, there's more. More in the form of many more books in the series. I can understand how people looking for their own blue-eyed hero can become enamoured with these books.  I'm not, I didn't.

A Short Stop in California

One of the reasons that I flew out of Virginia on inauguration day was because I wanted to visit with my friends at their monthly confab. I used to be a part of this group, but it is too difficult to visit when you are a continent away.  I wanted to surprise them and just show up, but I did let Tom and John know. They Gchat with me, so it was easier to let this slip. They were meeting at Phillipe's, one of my favorite dives. The waiter took this picture. Let me tell you who they are. Jackson is at the left rear. He left The Times when he was 75. Still doing well. He travels to Japan twice a year for over a month each time. Go Jackson. Next is me, then Jim, who was a supervisor of the Helpdesk with me at one time . Tom is next to him.  I saw Tom 3 times on this trip. I also went to The Times twice to visit with friends and have lunch. Russ is next. His wife, Toni, is front left. He worked for Jim, then me and left to get a job at Long Beach State. John is on the far right. Banjo man. He gave us a concert in the parking lot after dinner, using Russ's banjo. Idalia is in front with her husband Guillermo. It was great fun.

It took no time at all to get my car registered. The DMV was very efficient, my total time in the office must have been 45 minutes max. That means that the rest of the time was spent visiting. Marilyn, Peggy and I met at The Farmer's Market. While we were getting our lunch, Marilyn was telling us about this fabulous doughnut place, Bob's. She said "everything in the world revolves around Bob's" quoting a favorite TV personality. It just happens that Bob was standing next to us at the time. He was getting his lunch too.  What a sweetie. He treated us to coffee and doughnuts to go with our lunch. So, if you are ever by the Farmer's Market next to The Grove, stop by to get something from Bob.  And think about the benefit of always saying nice things.

Later in the week I ate with Peggy again. This time we had breakfast with Maggie. I call us the Margaret Derivitives. Maggie and I would have breakfast every now and then before I left for Virginia this spring. She is one of my many conservative friends. Our last talk before I left was how the conservatives were left without a dog in the current fight. Obviously that was before Sarie was selected as veep candidate. Now that was a dog.

Adrian and I drove up to Albany for the, hopefully, annual German Potato Salad festival. We stayed with Karen and Peter. Peter has been building their back deck for some time. Talk about an adventure fraught with inspectors and unforeseen issues. It is coming along very well. Karen doesn't just add support by eating her lunch while Peter slaves. In fact, this is a rare moment of quiet for her.

I got no pictures of the event at Natalie and Kevin's. Besides the salad, we had a wonderful time. Almost everyone was there, including Jeff and Sandi. That was a treat. The ham and salad dinner used to always follow Thanksgiving. This year, people celebrated Tday all over the U.S. I'm glad the Northern Cal group decided to move the second get-together of that holiday to a later date. It was a beautiful day, we had a ton of food and got to celebrate the togetherness of our family.

The next day we celebrated the togetherness of the National and American Football Leagues. That was an exciting game. Maggie came over dressed as a cheerleader, but during the very long game switched to bride. Go team.